Ok, I give up, I'll get a new heat gun.

OK, I give up.

I try hard not to buy tools online or in a store.  There are too many thrift stores around me to justify splashing out on a brand spanking new thing but in this case, well blah here we go.

Hey, feel like a trip to the hardware store?

Yep.  I'm off.  You see, I'm in the middle of this month of self imposed exile from the trails.  It gave me plenty of time to give a long hard look at my skates and a couple other projects here, and I came to the conclusion that I need to buy a new heat gun.

The hair dryer did not work, it just is not hot enough to melt the plastic sufficiently. 

Mind you, the skates I bought last year are great but they have a quirk in the fitting that I need to remedy.  It rests against a bone under my right ankle as I give power to the wheels and it needs to be heated and pushed outwards to give me a little more room.

The standard skater tricks of surgical tape and double socks only worked so far and I am convinced a heat gun will do the trick.

There are also a few things that need to be "melted".  Having a Jeep Wrangler means that you have grey plastic parts after a while, and treating them with a heat gun will turn them back to black.

The first thing I did was to take stock of what was online and find a benchmark for price.  $10 is a great price but I didn't want to drive to Miami in a Jeep that gets 18MPG highway (23 with a tail wind on the overseas highway to the Keys). 

Then to one thrift store more.  Nope.

Then I went onto the online retailers and found it for $17. 

Even went to a craft store and they had a low end one for $26.  No, those sell online for under $10 thanks.

Oh and those plastic bottles everyone seems to love to hate?  If you wrap one around something and blast it with a heat gun it turns into shrink wrap that you'll never get it free without cutting it!

Cool huh?  Better than "Recycling" it because you understand nobody has figured out how to recycle plastic.

By The Way... use a reusable bottle for your water needs.  Mother Earth will thank you, and so will I.

Supposedly if you do it right, it can be used for heat shrinking and making things waterproof and ... 

You get the picture.  I got the heat gun last night.